anything, he had rearranged her computer monitor, as well as her wireless mouse and keyboard, so that she’d have to work from the other side of the desk. If she had been contemplating something stupid, it would be a lot harder now.
Dragging over a side chair, he set it in front of the desk and told her to sit down. He then handed Sølvi his rifle and had her watch the hallway while he cut the Contessa loose and relayed to Nicholas that they were ready to go.
Back in the United States, the little man prepared to return to Montecalvo her most prized piece of intelligence—one of the gems that he had stolen from her.
Though Nicholas could have sold it for a fortune, he had kept it as an insurance policy. It was pure blackmail gold; an explosive Get Out of Jail Free card implicating some very powerful people in a serious scandal.
And while it had been worth more to him sitting in his digital vault than he ever could have cashed it in for, he owed Harvath his life. It was time to play this card.
To facilitate the exchange, they set up a virtual meeting on the Dark Web. There, they traded files and took time to authenticate what each had been sent.
Each file contained a fail-safe; a sort of digital self-destruct feature. Only when both had agreed that the deal was satisfactory, could they exit the meeting with what the other party had given them.
In exchange for the return of the prized piece of intelligence Nicholas had stolen from her, the Contessa had handed over what Harvath and Sølvi wanted—the file on the person who had purchased the information about Carl and Harvath. That was who they were looking for. That was their assassin. Harvath was certain of it.
“What she sent looks good,” Nicholas said. “It will take me a little time to run it all down, but it appears authentic.”
“Are you happy with what you received?” Harvath asked the Contessa.
“Yes,” the woman replied.
“Okay, we’re good on this end too,” he stated over his earbud.
The next part of the puzzle, though, introduced a new problem—how to make sure that after they left, the Contessa didn’t tip off her client.
Allegedly, she didn’t even know who the client was. She had never met him and the encrypted means of communication he used were constantly changing. Normally, he contacted her when he wanted something. That was what he had done in regard to Harvath. In return, she had put the blanket word out to her “collectors” that she was looking for anything they had on the American. Kovalyov, it turned out, had something very valuable. And he had been paid well for that information, in no small part because she had been paid extremely well.
With each client, she had developed a unique follow-up protocol—a way she could alert them if anything else bubbled up that she thought they might find interesting. Because clients burned even encrypted email addresses after each transaction, she needed another way to ping them.
She used predetermined online auction sites, placing obscure items up for bid, which would trigger alerts to the client in question. It was the modern equivalent of old-school tradecraft, back when coded messages used to be placed in the classified sections of newspapers around the world. Even today, in the age of modern technology, the simplest solutions were often still the best.
That didn’t change Harvath’s problem, though. How could they know that she wasn’t holding out on them? That she didn’t have another way to reach the client? That she might send out a warning?
In short, there was no way they could know. Their only option was to lock her up—physically or professionally.
Physically meant exactly what it sounded like—they could tie her up, put a bag over her head, and stash her away until they nailed her client.
Professionally it meant offering her something so valuable that she wouldn’t dare jeopardize it by sending out an alert.
Needless to say, Nicholas was an instant fan of operation “bag-over-the-head.”
Harvath, though, didn’t want to wait around for an extraction team to show up in order to move her to a safe house and sit on her. Depending on where they came from, that could take a while—even if they used The Carlton Group’s Quick Reaction Force.
As soon as the information on the Contessa’s client provided a lead, he wanted to be wheels up. Thankfully, back in the United States, Lawlor had agreed with him.
In fact, Lawlor had gone